Various dental procedures for extraction of a tooth are known in the art. Commonly, these methods involve luxating the tooth with dental elevator until the periodontal ligament is sufficiently broken and the supporting alveolar bone is adequately widened to make the tooth loose enough thereby ready to be removed. Removal of the tooth is usually accomplished with dental forceps through the application of intermittent apical and lateral forces. When a tooth cannot be easily accessed (e.g. because it is broken under the gum line), the surgical procedure may be involved, requiring elevation of the soft tissues covering the tooth and removal of some of the surrounding jawbone tissue with a drill, in order to access the tooth for extraction.
During and after such conventional dental procedures bleeding, fluid seepage or weeping, or other forms of fluid loss typically occur. In addition, bone tissue is being removed or damaged during the procedure. As a result, swelling and residual bleeding persist during the healing period. Generally, whether the injury to the surrounding tissues during extraction procedure is greater, these side effects are more pronounced.
Komatsu (J. Biomech., 40:634-644, 2007) discloses the alignment of collagen molecules and fibrils, during stress-relaxation of the PDL in a tooth-PDL bone segment.
Komatsu et al. (J. Biomech., 40: 2700-2706, 2007; and J. Dental Biomech., doi:10.406/2010/502318) disclose that collagenase reduced greater area occupied by the PDL collagen fibers, reduced birefringent retardation of the fibers and reduced the PDL fiber area in PDL specimen, in vitro.
There is an unmet need to minimize the adverse outcomes of tooth extraction, including pain, tissue injury and/or trauma, and to enable convenient reconstruction of edentulous area together with reduced treatment time and shorter healing period.